China has been taking advantage of the US war against terrorism to make sweeping arrests of its restive Muslim population in the far west, according to Amnesty International. Although hardly any 'terrorist' acts have been committed in the XUAR (Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region) over the past few years, the authorities have detained thousands of people over the last six months. The international human rights group said on Friday that thousands of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang have been detained since 11 September.

   Small numbers of Uighurs have waged a low-level bombing campaign in the region in the last few years but Amnesty warns that many of those arrested may have done "little more than practice their religion or defend their culture". 

A Chinese Government spokesman, while refusing to comment on the specific cases cited by Amnesty, dismissed the accusations as groundless. 

"Although hardly any 'terrorist' acts have been committed in the XUAR (Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region) over the past few years, the authorities have detained thousands of people over the last six months, and imposed new restrictions on freedom of religion and cultural rights," Amnesty said. 

"Some people have been sentenced to long prison terms and others have been executed," it said. 

China claims that a large number of Uighurs have been trained in Afghanistan - which shares a short border with Xinjiang - and have close links with Osama Bin Laden. 

But human rights monitors, including UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, are worried that China is using 11 September as an excuse to stamp on peaceful dissent. 


By the end of 2001, 8,000 imams had been "trained" by the authorities to give them "a clearer understanding of the party's ethnic and religious policies," the rights group said. 

It also reported that school pupils and officials have been pressured not to fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. 

Amnesty's 33-page report echoes similar claims by other human rights reports but it is nevertheless likely to anger China, which was infuriated by the US report on its poor human rights record published last month. 

Uighurs, who are Turkic speaking, are ethnically and linguistically distinct from China's Han majority. 

Uighur separatists are campaigning for their own independent state, which would be called East Turkestan.China's Communist rulers have their own motives for supporting America in its fight against the Taleban. For years Beijing has been fighting its own, little-publicized conflict with Muslim separatists in its far western province of Xianjiang. The people of Xianjiang are called Uighurs. They are closely related to the Uzbeks and other Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia. With their bright green eyes, long flowing beards and aquiline features they have little in common with - and little affection for - their Chinese masters. 

Since 11 September, China has officially labelled its fight against Uighur separatism as a fight against terrorists - no different, it says, from America's fight against the Al Qaeda, or Britain's against the IRA. 

There is growing evidence that in recent weeks, arrests of those suspected of political dissent in Xinjiang have been dramatically stepped up. But back on Ox street, Mr Xing has a more simple explanation for his government's stance. "They're afraid," he says, looking up from his bowl of noodles. "Our so-called leaders are scared of offending America. They're weak and corrupt and they've all sent their children to live in America. Not like in the old days when Mao Zedong was around. Then China stood up to America."  "What was it Mao used to call America?" he asks. "Oh yes," he chuckles, " a paper tiger. That's what Mao called it, a paper tiger."

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